


Patchwork Family

by littlelionsloves



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AND I AM SO PROUD, Phandom Big Bang, and happy, because it's done!!!, but it's done, this took literally over a year to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:45:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelionsloves/pseuds/littlelionsloves
Summary: Dan had been living the same day over and over for years. He was unable to break his routine until a stranger started to feed the ducks with him every morning. Somehow that led to him enduring the horrors of golf and pottery, and suddenly he wasn't so lonely anymore.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written for the Phandom Big Bang and holy fuck it took a long time to write but it's here!!! The incredible art was done by Misbah (starryskylester on tumblr), and Makila (whalefairyfandom12 on tumblr) was my lovely beta who helped me kill off unwanted typos.
> 
> Link to art: http://starryskylester.tumblr.com/post/153880997285/art-art-art-gallore-art-for-the-incredibly
> 
> See the end for trigger warnings!

Dan's wife had been one of those strange people who loved the early morning. She never seemed to struggle with getting out of bed, no matter how little she'd slept. She insisted there was something soothing about walking through Paris when no one was awake, and apparently the brisk coolness of the air only added to that pleasure. Dan had rolled his eyes at her and burrowed further under the duvet whenever she had tried to convince him to join her.

Dan had never been a morning person, so even aged seventy-two the shrill ringing of his alarm elicited a pained groan as he shut it off. After Lilian died, he'd had to go back to setting alarms for himself. His alarm was set for seven every day, despite having nothing to look forward to. He figured it was because he felt closer to his wife that way, even if he still didn't understand why she'd liked rising early.

When they'd first gotten married, Dan had made a conscious effort to wake up early too. Lily had appreciated it, until she'd realised it meant his bedside table housing half a dozen alarm clocks, all set to go off five minutes apart. She'd thrown them all out within the first two weeks of their marriage, and her hunt for the most effective way to wake him up had begun. She'd thought it would be easy, considering how long she'd known him.

First had been the soft murmurs and gentle shaking of his shoulder. When all that achieved was Dan sometimes muttering nonsensical words, Lily had moved on. Bouncing on the bed and hoping the constant movement would wake him proved fruitless. Dan had remained fast asleep until he'd been bounced out of bed. Pouring a glass of cold water over him had resulted in having cold water dunked over her head soon after, meaning another change in tactics, and smacking him in the face with a pillow had resulted in her pillow being held hostage that night.

When Lily finally discovered how to wake him up it was completely by accident. She'd run out of ideas to try, and had decided she needed time to think of more creative solutions. She'd planned on letting him have his lie in while she plotted, and had settled herself on the couch with a notepad and coffee. It was as she'd taken her first sip that Dan had appeared in the doorway, hair sticking up everywhere and his eyes only half open.

"Coffee," he'd croaked, holding out his hands like a zombie while he'd shuffled towards her, clearly only half awake.

Ever since then Lily had simply brewed a cup of strong coffee and put it down on his bedside table. It'd always taken less than five minutes for him to be sat next to her, sleepily staring ahead of him while drinking the coffee.

Now there was no lovingly made cup of coffee to wake him up. Instead, Dan just stared ahead of him while sat at the edge of his bed. People always said that time would heal all wounds. They were wrong. He didn't miss Lilian any less, and if anything the wound she'd left behind just gaped wider with each passing day.

He shuffled around the apartment and settled in his spot on the couch with the coffee that he still couldn't quite brew right. He switched to the news, like always, but couldn't bring himself to pay attention to what was being said. He just watched the images flash by, and sluggishly drank his coffee.

*****

Dan had never been shy exactly, more quiet. His wickedly sharp sense of humour had often been kept to himself, hidden under noncommittal shrugs as his brain produced witty remarks like quickfire. Lily had been the complete opposite. She'd been confident and sociable and had always seemed to radiate energy. Lily had brought out the more impulsive side of Dan, and had encouraged him, slightly forcefully at times, to become more sociable too.

When she'd died, Dan's defence against everything had been to retreat back into himself. He became unresponsive, unable to find the energy to maintain friendships, and sought comfort in routine.

First the habits had come in the form of taking care of their son and going to work. Everything had always been done at an allocated time, without fail. Food shopping, laundry, making dinner, dropping his son off at school - it'd all had a set time. He clung to his routines until they became all he had left, until he was able to get through each day without ever really needing to wake up.

When Logan had left home and when he'd retired, he'd simply adapted his routines.

So for the past seven years, he had shown up at the boulangerie at eight thirty every morning with the same order. The daily conversation between him and the baker had become a script they both followed down to the letter.

"Deux baguettes?"

Dan nodded, sometimes wondering if the baker would show any kind of reaction if he changed his order in any way. Maybe he was so used to following their little script he didn't even pay enough attention to notice a change.

The exchange of money and bread was like a practiced dance. The baker handed Dan the two baguettes as Dan dropped the exact change into the baker's outstretched palm, the rustling of the brown paper bags and the soft clinking of the coins acting as the background music.

"Merci, à demain!"

"À demain," Dan echoed, already halfway to the door, baguettes wedged under his arm and hands shoved into the pockets of his wool coat.

Every day was the same. He'd wake himself up, walk to his favourite bench along the Seine and feed his extra baguette from the day before to the ducks. Then he'd walk to the boulangerie to pick up two new baguettes and walk back to his small apartment. On Tuesday mornings he stopped by the crémerie to pick up more cheese for his baguette. It was a simple existence.

He hated it.

He hated the loneliness that came with being a widower and an estranged father. He hated the pitying looks he routinely got from his neighbours and the never-ending boredom that permeated every aspect of his life. Every day offered the exact same, sometimes with an added twinge of pain in his back or a longer amount of time spent watching a TV show he didn't care about.

The only three things that had changed in his life in the past several years were the unnecessary extra baguette, his granddaughter, and her mother, Eva.

The added baguette every morning had been introduced shortly after one of his neighbours had first wondered how lonely he had to be. The pity in her eyes had made him feel ashamed of his shell of an existence, so he resolved to start giving the impression that he wasn't alone. His single baguette turned into two, he found a hat to hide his expression when out in public, and his neighbours were avoided at all costs.

His granddaughter, Amélie, brightened up his Friday afternoons. Although he didn't regret his choice to help Eva for a second, sometimes he couldn't help wondering if it had been worth losing his son.

*****

The ducks never seemed to get less greedy, each duck diving for whatever piece of bread was closest and battling the others for it. Some even went as far as taking larger pieces away from another duck's beaks. They hardly finished swallowing one piece of bread before going for another chunk, quacking loudly as if to warn the others to stay out of their way.

Dan liked to alternate between throwing a single piece into the middle of the crowd to see them all dive for it, and throwing a handful of pieces to them in one go. He made sure to throw pieces to those stuck on the outskirts of the crowd with access to less food. Could ducks be grateful? Or did they just see the food and eat it without a thought of who or where it had come from?

It was likely the latter. Ducks didn't strike him as particularly grateful. Dan glowered a little as he threw the next handful of bread chunks into the water.

The scowl only deepened when he saw a passer-by stop at his bench and sit down on the other end. The passer-by pulled out a small bag filled with slices of bread, and started tossing chunks to the ducks. Dan felt irrationally possessive of the ducks; they were his to feed at that time of day. He'd been doing it for years without anyone joining him. Part of him was tempted to tell the stranger to find his own ducks to feed, or to come back later, but his inability to handle confrontations stopped him.

Instead, he channelled his inner child. He started tossing the handfuls of bread slightly away from the stranger, turning it into a competition of who could win over more ducks. Even if the other wasn't aware, it satisfied something in Dan, leaving him smirking a little to himself.

Despite the stranger's later arrival, he ran out of bread first, sparking another hint of triumph in Dan. The stranger dusted the crumbs off his fingers as he rose from the bench, saying a quiet goodbye to the ducks. Dan looked up at that, somewhat surprised, and found the stranger looking back at him with a hint of a smile. He inclined his head a little, then turned and started walking away at a brisk pace, leaving Dan to feed the ducks in a slightly brighter mood.

*****

The stranger kept showing up after that and Dan felt a little less territorial with each day that passed. He could handle joint custody of the ducks. He'd even started looking forward to seeing him. He had a sense of camaraderie whenever he was around, despite them never having spoken a word to each other.

He even told Lily about him on one of his Sunday visits to her gravestone. His mind conjured up an image of how she would have reacted with ease. She would have demanded he talk to the stranger he'd somehow started to consider a friend. He'd promised to think about it as he'd kissed his fingertips and pressed them to her gravestone. It would be nice to have someone other than Eva and Amélie to talk to.

Only the next time he showed up at the bench, determined to at least find out the stranger's name, he didn't come. It was the first time in seven years that Dan had arrived at the boulangerie late.

*****

He wasn't there the day after, or the day after that. It wasn't until the sixth day of Dan waiting anxiously on the bench that the stranger came back. Dan started beaming as soon as he saw him walking towards the bridge to cross over to the side with their bench. His left knee started bouncing up and down - a habit he'd developed in his teens when he was anxious or excited. He wasn't sure which emotion was making his knee go up and down madly. He ducked his head down and continued to throw bread towards the ducks, trying to make his knee stay still.

He couldn't help sneaking glances at the stranger's approaching form, feeling kind of ridiculous. His knee kept bouncing until the stranger was seated in his usual spot with a smile and a bigger bag of bread than usual. Dan's happiness grew with each glance in the stranger's direction, until he was beaming at the ducks as he tossed them the bread.

It was only when half the stranger's bread was gone that Dan remembered his promise to Lilian to actually start a conversation with him. His knee restarted its bouncing with twice as much vigour, anxiety taking over. The weeks spent in companionable silence made it so much harder to enter new territory and break their comfortable quiet.

Dan spent several minutes feeling like a fish, his mouth opening and closing as he repeatedly found and lost the courage to say something. He opened his mouth to try again when his throat decided to betray him and produced a low-pitched croak. Dan hastily coughed, hoping the stranger hadn't noticed, and snuck a look at him.

The stranger had a tiny smile on his face, and was looking at him sideways. The smile only grew when he noticed the embarrassed grimace on Dan's face.

He crumpled up the bag that had contained the chunks of bread and stood up, the lines around his eyes pronounced as he grinned at Dan.

"Goodbye," the stranger said to Dan, and turned to the ducks. "Bye ducks."

He was already several paces further when Dan felt his mouth open, and then he was voicing what he'd been wondering for the past six days.

"Where were you?"

The stranger stopped walking and turned around, obviously surprised. He hesitated a moment, as if unsure if Dan was talking to him or not, so Dan repeated the question, and watched him walk back to the bench and sit down.

"I was in Versailles, visiting my daughter."

Dan nodded, feeling like he had to say something and coming up blank. The stranger seemed to sense this and continued talking, earning a grateful smile.

"She just had her third baby. I always go visit after she's had a baby to help out, and to cement my place as the favourite grandparent of course."

Dan laughed at that, surprising himself. Somehow it gave him the courage he needed to say something in reply.

"So? Was your mission successful?"

"I think I mostly just scored points with my daughter. I doubt the kid cared much who changed his nappies," the stranger pointed out with a rueful smile. "But it's ok, this kid will get the best birthday and Christmas presents ever and then I'll win."

"Sounds like I have it much easier than you, I don't have any other grandparents to compete with. I'm automatically the favourite," Dan said, his tone sadder than he'd intended it to be.

The stranger seemed to pick up on it, and asked why that was, looking concerned.

"Long story."

"I've got time," the stranger responded, giving him an encouraging smile.

*****

Dan had just settled into his spot on the couch with a cup of tea and a book, when the bell rang. He glared in the direction of the door for a few moments, then heaved himself up and lumbered out of the living room.

He stopped in front of the door, considering just not opening it and going back to the living room and his book. He hated opening the door in case it was one of his neighbours - he'd learned that avoiding them was better the hard way. He imagined Lilian scolding him about manners and automatically opened the door, smiling at the image his mind had produced for him.

A young woman was standing in front of him, nervously twisting her fingers together.

"Hi," she began, and faltered. "I... Does Logan live here?"

Dan instantly felt a familiar anger lodging itself somewhere between his ribs.

"No, he doesn't. I'm his father, can I take a message for him?" he asked, trying to keep a pleasant smile on his face.

"Could you please tell him Eva came by?"

Dan nodded politely, and started closing the door, only to be stopped by Eva's hand shooting out and holding it open.

She hesitated for a moment, then blurted, "Could you also tell him I'm pregnant?"

Dan froze. Part of him had expected to hear those words ever since his son had started sending his conquests his way, but that didn't help with the shock.

He felt his heart start pounding and panic thrummed through his veins, and he couldn't think.

"My son doesn't live here," Dan told her clumsily, his mouth feeling too dry and his tongue too thick. "But trust me, you'd be better off without him."

He closed the door quickly, head spinning and feeling faintly sick.

Several years before, Logan had realised he didn't have to give his address to any of the girls he saw. Instead, he'd give them Dan's address, knowing they'd be treated well and then be sent on their way. The first few times, Dan hadn't really known what to do. So he'd smiled at the girls kindly and offered them dinner and made sure they left feeling a bit better. Then he'd picked up the phone and given his son hell, his fury so intense he'd actually scared himself.

It hadn't changed Logan's behaviour.

Dan struggled to find the person Logan had been before Lilian's death in his son. He'd dreamed of being an astronaut or a fireman, or any of the other professions children usually dreamed of. He'd been shy and unfailingly kind and had cared as much as any child could. Dan felt the change was his fault.

On paper, he'd been a perfectly good father. He'd gone to every football and basketball game; he'd helped with homework and made time for parents' evenings. He'd always made him a packed lunch, sewn missing buttons back on and been there to look after him when he'd been ill. He'd never hit him or ignored him.

He'd never intentionally hurt his son; but he'd been absent. He hadn't known how to cope with the loss of his lifelong best friend and wife, so he'd opted out of feeling much of anything. Sometimes he wondered if his son thought of him as more robot than human, and then he found he didn't want to know the answer.

But that didn't excuse the things Logan did.

By the time Dan had come to his senses and realised what he'd done, Eva had been gone. He'd tried to find her, he really had, but all he had to go on was that she was called Eva. Logan had claimed he didn't know whom he was talking about, and that had effectively meant the end of the search.

*

Several weeks later, Dan was still rushing to the door multiple times a day, convinced he'd heard the bell go.

He was in the middle of preparing dinner when he thought he heard it again. He turned the heat down and hurried straight to the front door, wiping his wet hands on his trousers as he went.

He swung the door open, the hope that Eva had come back trumping all other emotions he had about opening the door.

The relief that crashed through him at the sight of her chestnut hair and pleading eyes was indescribable.

"Would you like to come in?" he asked, opening the door wider.

*

"Logan, I need you to come down here right this second. No arguing, just get here as fast as you can."

Dan hung up, and turned back to Eva. "He should be here soon. In the meantime, how does steak-frites sound?"

She nodded gratefully, and continued fiddling with the silver necklace around her neck.

Dan headed to the stove, grabbing another steak from the freezer and setting it to defrost in the microwave. This wasn't the first time he'd prepared dinner for one of his son's hook ups.

Dan forced himself out of his thoughts, and turned away from his sizzling steak to face the girl sat at his table.

"So, Eva," he started, a little unsure of what he was going to say next. What could you say in this kind of situation? "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"

"Well, I'm an artist. The struggling kind," she added with a nervous laugh, hand dropping to her stomach. "I'm twenty eight and live with my best friend and I like the colour green? I'm sorry, I'm not sure what else to say."

Dan didn't know what to say to that. His forty-three year old son had gotten a twenty-eight year old girl pregnant. So he avoided it.

"Light green or dark green?" he asked instead, tone light and smiling a little.

*

The anger that had started to recede surged back when Dan heard the bell go for the second time. He wasn't sure when his body had started gearing up for a fight whenever he knew he was going to see his son.

"I'll be right back," he told the girl stiffly, standing up with a leaden heart.

He swung the door open, and wordlessly stared his son down. Dan could smell the alcohol on him from two feet away, and closed his eyes, steeling himself. Finally, he jerked his head to the side to tell him to come in.

"So why was it so important I came down right away?" Logan slurred, heading for the kitchen and opening the wine cabinet. "And what is she doing here?"

Eva seemed to see that as her cue, and quietly explained that she was pregnant.

Logan stared at her blankly for a moment, then turned to Dan. "This is why I left a date? So some girl could tell me she's pregnant?"

Dan exhaled through his nose forcefully, trying to force himself to stay calm. "Yes, so she could tell you she's pregnant with your child."

Logan took a sip from the glass of wine he'd poured himself, and swirled the contents around a bit.

"Bullshit," he said, almost pleasantly. "There's no way that kid is mine."

Dan almost couldn't believe what he was about to ask. "Did you sleep with her?"

"Yep," Logan replied, popping the 'p'. "But she's probably fucked half a dozen other guys since then. There's no guarantee it's mine."

"Logan, she says it's yours. That child is yours," Dan said, struggling not to raise his voice.

He slammed down the wine glass, and sat himself down opposite Eva clumsily.

"If you don't want the kid, abort it. If you want it, then keep it, but don't come to me pretending it's mine because we both know it's not. I just signed up for a few fun nights, I didn't say I wanted to take care of you or your spawn."

He turned to Dan with a mocking smile. "Sorted. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to my date."

"You can't get back to your bloody date, Logan! I want you to take responsibility, not tell the poor girl to abort her baby!"

"It's her own damn fault she got knocked up!" Logan shouted, standing up so quickly his chair flew back. "If she didn't want to end up with a kid then she should have been more careful!"

Dan could see Eva flinching, and felt unexpectedly protective of her. He forced down the anger that had been on the verge of boiling over. It wasn't fair on her.

"I can't even imagine what your mother would say," he said, suddenly exhausted.

"Then it's a good thing she's dead, isn't it?" Logan shot back with a bitter twist of his lips.

White-hot anger flashed through Dan, and then he was grabbing his son's arm and dragging him out the front door.

Logan straightened his jumper, and glared in Dan's direction, gaze slightly unfocused. "This will be the last time you see me if you help that lying bitch."

Dan gave himself a moment to mourn the loss of his son, then closed the door with a quiet click. He could only hope Lilian would have agreed with his decision.

*****

He saw his son one more time after he'd shut the door in his face. Logan had called him a week later, asking to meet so they could discuss it all.

Dan had agreed, hoping Logan had changed his mind, but was still reluctant to walk into the café. If he hadn't changed his mind, part of Dan wanted to keep his hope alive by just avoiding the truth.

"Please tell me you've come to your senses," Logan began as Dan hung his coat on the back of his chair.

Dan considered putting his coat back on and walking back out of the café. The possibility of this being his last conversation with his son stopped him though, so he pulled out the chair and sat down.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Dan replied crisply, picking up the menu and surveying the drinks.

He attracted the attention of a passing waiter and smiled up at him. "Un café au lait s'il vous plaît? Merci."

Dan put the menu back down and clasped his hands together, out of things to delay the conversation.

"Why do you refuse to accept that this child is yours?"

Logan removed a flask from his pocket and poured some of the contents into his coffee. He lifted the cup and looked at it contemplatively, seeming to consider his answer carefully before taking a gulp.

Dan's hope for a serious answer evaporated when he saw the smirk on Logan's face as he set his cup down.

"Why do you refuse to accept that this brat isn't mine?"

Dan took a deep breath and twisted his fingers together, looking down at them rather than the son he barely knew.

"Why won't you help Eva? Why is it so hard for you to take responsibility?"

He didn't look up from his fingers, and just waited for Logan to break the silence. It took several minutes, but he finally started talking.

"Mom died when I was just a kid. It sucked to not have her there, but I still got through it and turned out fine. I never even wanted children - and having a kid because a random girl showed up saying she's up the duff because of me was definitely not part of the plan."

Dan could hear him shuffling around a bit, and another long pause followed.

"It's easier to just believe the kid isn't mine, and I'm not going to change my mind about this. Besides, regardless of if you think it's right or not, it is my choice, and it's not your place to interfere. You can't decide to start taking an interest in my life now. So I'm telling you again. It's me or the girl."

Dan finally looked up, and untwisted his fingers.

"Goodbye Logan," he whispered, and watched as his son's face hardened. He couldn't help the painful way his heart wrenched when Logan shoved his chair back and stumbled out of the café drunkenly.

"I'm sorry, Lilian."

He flagged down a passing waiter and asked for the bill, not even waiting for his coffee to arrive. He paid, and shuffled out of the café, exhaustion making everything feel like it was weighted down.

*****

The stranger - Phil, as Dan now knew - looked at him silently, clearly unsure of what to say.

Dan started digging his wallet out of his pocket, flipping over to where two images sat side by side. He pulled them out and handed them to Phil, smiling a little.

"That's Amélie on her first birthday, and that's Eva in the background," he said, pointing at the first picture. "That's Lilian," he added, pointing at the other picture.

Phil scrutinised both pictures, smiling as he looked at the one of Amélie.

"She's adorable," he commented, handing Dan's wallet back to him. "Could Eva's parents not have helped at all though?"

"They're very strict Catholics, so hearing their daughter was having a baby out of wedlock wasn't quite music to their ears. Not a lot of people stuck around for the poor girl."

Phil nodded, and stayed silent for a couple moments.

"So which duck is your favourite?" he asked, giving Dan an out from the difficult topic and receiving a grateful smile in return.

*****

"You're sure you don't want to get breakfast?"

Phil's brow was furrowed, and he was looking at Dan as if he wasn't quite sure he believed him.

Dan just nodded, smiling tightly, and quickly threw the rest of his bread into the middle of the crowd of ducks. He busied himself by swiping the crumbs from his trousers and fingers, avoiding Phil's eyes.

He stood up and looked down at Phil, balling up the plastic the baguette had come in.

"I should really get going," Dan said, trying to sound convincing. "But thank you, I'll see you tomorrow."

He stuffed the balled up plastic into his pocket and started walking away quickly, pulling his hat down further. Dan could feel the regret seeping into his bones more with each step, weighing him down.

He didn't look back until he was almost over the bridge, and felt a small spark of surprise when he saw that Phil hadn't moved. He lifted a hand, and sent Phil a small wave, then turned around and kept walking before he could see Phil wave back.

Dan only looked up again when he'd reached his front door, fumbling with his keys a bit. It took him a few moments to step past the threshold. As he stared around the entryway of his flat, he thought that maybe a few decades earlier he could have walked back. Maybe he could have called Phil and agreed on another day to have breakfast together.

It was too late now. He was too tired. He'd been alone for so long, and for so long that routine had been the only thing keeping him going. He hadn't broken it in almost thirty-two years, and breaking it now felt impossible.

When he'd first started the routine, he'd moulded a lot of it around his son. He'd wanted Logan to miss out on as little as possible from their previous life. Since Lily had always woken up with Logan to make his lunch and walk him to school, Dan made it part of the routine.

He wasn't sure how much Logan had appreciated it at first, since he'd always been silent on the walks. Whenever Dan had tried to spark a conversation, his efforts had been met with a glare, so he stopped trying. Eventually he'd started taking the bus with Logan instead.

They'd been taking the bus a few weeks when Logan started talking to Dan again on the journeys to school. Then he asked if they could go back to walking, and those walks became something separate from the rest. No matter how bad their relationship became over the years that followed, those walks were different. It was like something they shared with Lilian, and it had felt wrong to argue.

Then Logan had moved out almost the day he'd started university, and their refuge from everything else had disappeared. At first, Logan had still made some effort, and had visited once or sometimes twice a week. That became once or twice a month. Soon, it was just for holidays like Christmas or Easter, and even that was with some reluctance.

When Lily died, and the whole time he'd watched his relationship with his son fall apart more and more, he'd had his routine. He had stuck to it almost religiously. He'd stuck to it until he'd felt so bound to it that he was sure he would still get out of bed every day.

As important as his routine was to him, he couldn't deny how much he wanted a friend. Sure, he had his adapted version of family in Eva and Amélie, but he was still alone so much of the time.

Dan stopped in the middle of spreading cheese onto his baguette. He had turned down the opportunity to have breakfast with someone else for the first time in more than twenty years. He didn't even have a good reason. He'd done it for the sake of sticking to his ridiculous habit, so he could have a baguette next to his window, by himself, while half watching the nine o'clock news.

He imagined what Lilian would have said, and promised her that he'd say yes if Phil asked again. She wouldn't want him to be alone all the time, and he didn't want to be alone either, not now that he could change that.

*****

It took a few days, but Phil did ask about getting breakfast again. He suggested a fairly new café that he'd been meaning to try out, looking at Dan hopefully.

"I pass it every day on my way back from feeding the ducks, and every time I see a waiter come by with one of those muffins..." Phil trailed off, clearly thinking about the café's muffins.

Dan suppressed a smile at how easily distracted Phil was. He remembered his promise to Lily only when he found himself opening his mouth to decline. The 'no' had flown to his lips so readily he'd almost forgotten.

He forced down the declination, and tried to ignore how wrong it felt that he wouldn't be heading to the bakery in a few minutes.

"I'd... I'd really like that," he said, feeling like he was trying to convince himself.

Phil didn't seem to notice his hesitance, and beamed at him, the lines around his mouth and eyes deepening.

*****

Dan could barely focus on the menu, his eyes involuntarily flicking up to Phil every few seconds. He seemed completely at ease, leaning back in his chair a little bit and absently playing with a fork as he looked over the options.

Dan found himself wishing he hadn't agreed to this more by the minute. He felt so out of his depth. He didn't even know how long it had been since he'd had a meal with anyone other than Eva and Amélie. What was he meant to talk about?

It felt so bizarre to know hardly anything about Phil, and that Phil only knew about Dan's problems with Logan. Where was he supposed to go from there? Generally the more personal things weren't revealed until later in a potential friendship. Dan was fairly sure he wasn't supposed to open with them.

Dan's mental berating of himself was cut short by the waiter appearing to take their order. He had been too distracted to register any of the options, so when Phil ordered the pancakes he just did the same.

He was only allowed a brief moment of panic before Phil began talking. Something about the ease with which Phil launched into his anecdote relaxed Dan, and soon he was settling back into his seat. He found himself smiling at the way Phil raised his eyebrows expressively and how he waved his hands enthusiastically. Sometimes he even offered the odd comment and was rewarded with a flash of a smile from Phil.

"Why did you think that's how you make pancakes?" Dan chuckled.

"I thought it made sense! I had all the right ingredients, so why not put them all straight into the pan? It's not my fault it didn't work!" Phil defended himself, his eyes sparkling at Dan happily.

"The burning smell, the fire alarm going off and the flour explosion didn't tip you off?" Dan questioned disbelievingly. He pointed his fork at Phil in an accusatory fashion. "It's totally your fault, admit it!"

"Never! It's my brother's fault - he's the one that told me to throw all the ingredients into the pan and to leave it! I was just an innocent six year old, he was the mature, responsible one."

Dan just shook his head, and silently thanked God that Amélie knew better than to be near the stove on her own.

"How did your mom react?"

The horrified look on Phil's face was answer enough.

*****

"What do you mean you've never tried golf?"

Phil looked so shocked that Dan actually felt a little ashamed, and just muttered something about not having thought of it.

"It's practically your duty as a retired person to try golf," Phil insisted.

"It just never felt important," Dan tried to justify, still not looking away from the ducks. The ducks weren't judging him.

"Dear Lord," Phil sighed. "Well, we're trying golf."

"No, please, I don't mind not having tried it and-"

Phil cut him off, and said, "I'm booking a session when I get home."

He tossed the rest of the bread in the general direction of the ducks and turned on the bench to face him. Dan could almost feel the weight of Phil's scrutinising gaze, and shrank away a little.

"What else have you not tried?" Phil demanded, eyes narrowed.

"I've tried everything. Please leave me alone, I don't want to do anything else," Dan tried to protest weakly.

"I'm taking you to bingo," Phil said decisively. "My wife goes every Friday night, they won't mind if we join her."

*****

"You look ridiculous."

"We're wearing the same clothes," Phil pointed out with a smile.

"We both look ridiculous," Dan grumbled.

They were standing in the middle of the rental shop next to the entrance of the club, and Dan was looking around slightly dazedly.

The number of golf clubs surrounding them was ridiculous, he thought, and he wasn't sure why there were different classes of balls. A golf ball was a golf ball. Surely it couldn't be much more complicated than that?

Phil didn't seem to agree, and had just spent a good few minutes discussing the pros and cons of two kinds with a shop assistant. Dan had tuned out immediately and had spent the time trying to find a difference between the different clubs Phil had brought with him. He'd come to the conclusion that they were all essentially the same, and that people who seemed to know the difference were lying through their teeth.

Phil finally said he was ready to leave, and Dan gladly grabbed the wheelie bag with clubs he was borrowing from Phil's wife and walked out of the store. He readily started providing a stream of commentary on the ridiculousness of it all.

"His jumper looks weird too - wait, are those matching jumpers?" Dan whispered loudly to Phil, pointing out a passing couple with a gleeful expression.

He tried to ignore the stab of sadness at the sight of the couple. He would give anything to be forced into a jumper that ugly by Lilian. He would have loved to tell her how stupid he thought matching clothes were.

"Your jumper is still uglier though," Dan told Phil, his tone almost consolatory.

"You realise you're borrowing a jumper from me, don't you? So surely we're at equal levels of ugly with our clothes."

"This one is by far the least hideous," Dan replied promptly, smoothing a hand over his side. "I'll always look better than you, don't worry."

Phil stopped walking at Dan's comment and spread his arms wide.

"There's no way you look better than me - this purple and orange combination was clearly sent down from heaven."

Dan snorted, and kept walking.

Sometimes he felt a little taken aback at how easily the replies and remarks slipped out. It felt like aspects of his personality that had been buried long ago were finally coming back. Lilian had been the only one he'd ever felt comfortable enough with to voice the comments flashing through his mind without a second thought.

Phil reminded him of Lily in how sociable he was and how effortlessly he made friends. He seemed to know all of the staff, and a lot of the other patrons too, stopping to greet people every few minutes.

Lily had been like that, always remembering the names of staff at restaurants and cafés they went to. She'd always been the one to bring colleagues home with her for dinner, to entertain Dan with stories of who she'd befriended that day. She'd seemed to have almost endless patience with people, and got a weird kind of energy from being around them.

Even at the end, the nurses had told Dan that she'd been one of their favourite patients.

Dan had never been like that. He'd only ever needed Lily, and sometimes the odd friend from work had featured in his life. No-one had really stuck, though, and after her passing he'd been truly alone.

She'd been his best friend for as long as he could remember. They'd grown up on the same road, and the two year age difference meant that their parents had considered them suitable playmates. Nothing had really separated them from that point on.

The fact that they'd gone to different schools and had such different personalities hadn't had an effect on their bond. When Lilian's parents had divorced and she'd moved, Dan had been worried for a short while. Only she'd continued showing up for dinner unannounced, and the worry had faded.

She'd always joked that their relationship sounded like it had come straight out of a cheesy romance film. Sometimes he couldn't help but bitterly think that it sounded more like it had come from a tragedy.

*****

"That can't be how you hold a club," Dan observed doubtfully.

Phil was trying to demonstrate how to swing, and was being constantly interrupted by Dan's commentary. He seemed happy to ignore most of it, and continued with his explanations, patiently going through the basics.

Dan was only half paying attention, so most of it went right by him, but he couldn't deny how much he was enjoying all of it. He was content to just bask in the warmth of the sun and enjoy his day out with Phil. Besides, it couldn't really be that hard to hit a ball over some grass.

He quickly discovered that his assumption had been quite wrong. Hitting a ball over some grass proved to be somewhat impossible. No matter what Phil suggested, he kept accidentally tearing up clumps of grass and dirt. Eventually he settled down on the ground a bit further and watched - with only the smallest amount of envy - as Phil sent the balls soaring over the green.

When they finally started packing everything up again, Dan gave Phil a sidelong glance and cleared his throat.

"You know, I've never tried pottery either."

Phil's eyes just sparkled knowingly.

*****

Amélie was twirling her way through the kitchen, singing her favourite theme tune, her embroidered towel flying out behind her. Somehow, despite the years of seeing her weekly kitchen performances the sight still filled Dan with joy.

Wednesday dinner had been part of the routine since almost the moment Dan had first sat Eva down at his small dinner table. That had been a Wednesday night too. Somehow, despite the frequent silences and painfully stilted conversation, Dan had found himself inviting her back for the following week. He still wasn't entirely sure why she'd agreed.

It had taken weeks for both of them to relax enough for the dinners to actually become enjoyable, but Eva had still been there each week without fail. In turn, Dan had never failed to feel genuinely surprised and slightly confused each time he'd opened the door to find her standing there.

Having Eva there filled a sort of gap for Dan, and he thought he compensated a little for her missing parents too. Eva and Amélie were his patchwork family.

He barely remembered how most of his routines had come into being, but he still remembered how relieved Eva had been at the end of the first dinner. She'd leaped up the second they'd both finished eating, and started clearing the table eagerly. Dan hadn't been sure whether to put it down to his horrendous social skills or her desperately wanting to prove that she wouldn't just be another burden for him to deal with. Something about the way she'd insisted on helping with the washing up had stopped Dan from arguing too much, and he'd grudgingly handed her a dishtowel.

Now they had it all down pat. It was the one routine that Dan didn't despise. He loved the comfortable way each part of the evening gave way to the next, and how things like setting and clearing the table were effortless because they all knew their parts perfectly. He liked knowing how Amélie always whisked her cup away to the kitchen sink before anyone else could pick it up, and the way Eva stacked plates expertly thanks to her years as a waitress.

He especially liked how Amélie always ran straight for the pegs on the wall in the kitchen for her towel. He'd found a pink and white chequered dishcloth a few years earlier, and had sloppily stitched her name into a corner. Amélie had been thrilled, and her towel always hung neatly next to his usual one. She'd always put her full effort into stealing her mother's towel to use as a prop in her dance performances, and now she had her very own.

Eva had confessed early on that she'd always wanted to do ballet when she was little. She'd subsequently enrolled Amélie for classes the second she'd mastered walking, though Dan imagined the result wasn't quite what she'd had in mind.

Sure, Amélie loved the classes, but she preferred to dance to music that didn't necessarily go with the dances. Outside of classes, she refused to dance to anything other than cartoon theme tunes and Disney songs, often horribly mismatching the dances to the music. She also provided the music herself, happy to warble her way through the songs as she leaped and twirled through the kitchen.

Dan was tapping his foot in time to Amélie's singing, and passed another plate to Eva to dry.

"I was wondering - I know you usually only watch her on Friday afternoons but..." Eva trailed off and glanced at Amélie. "I met this guy, and we were sort of thinking Friday evening for our date."

Dan waggled his eyebrows at her, and she stuck her tongue out at him in turn, her nose automatically scrunching up a little.

He was about to reply that yes, of course he could look after Amélie on Friday night, when he realised he'd made plans with Phil. He felt his eyes widen and he automatically stopped rinsing the glass he was holding, staring at Eva in disbelief.

"I... I have plans on Friday?" he said, the statement coming out as a question. "I have plans on Friday," he repeated, hearing his own confusion.

Not once had he been unable to look after Amélie when Eva had asked. He'd always been free whenever she'd needed him to be, and now, for the first time, he wasn't.

He shook his head a little, and resumed rinsing the glass. "Don't worry, I'll cancel and -"

"No!" Eva interrupted, her expression exuberant. "No, don't cancel, I'll arrange it for another time."

"Are you sure?" Dan asked doubtfully.

She nudged him with her hip gently and smiled. "Of course I am. So what are these amazing plans?"

"Phil decided that the next step in my retirement do-over is following a course. So we're following an art class. I get to learn how to paint," Dan said, tone dripping with false excitement.

"But you're a terrible artist."

"I tried to tell him, I really did. He just said that's what the course was for."

Eva's eyes glittered. "Does this mean I'm going to be hanging your masterpieces on the fridge, next to Amélie's?"

"And you'll be damn proud of me as you do," Dan said, handing her a fork.

*****

"I'm just saying, it's a horrible card game."

"You're a sore loser," Phil retaliated, squinting at the clay for a moment before nodding and releasing it.

"I am not a sore loser! You have horrible taste in card games! What do you have against Go Fish?"

Phil just gave him a look, and tried to flick some more clay from his fingers.

"I'll never understand why people like bridge. Who even came up with it?" Dan demanded.

"Someone who is nowhere near as sore a loser as you are. Pass me that brush, would you?"

Dan stopped the pottery wheel and handed him the brush, watching him sceptically. His eyebrows only rose higher when Phil used the wrong end of the brush to carve his wife's initials into the top.

"Beautiful," Phil pronounced proudly as he put down the brush.

Dan took a moment to just look at Phil's creation, then back at Phil.

"That's it?"

Phil nodded proudly, starting to wipe his fingers off on a nearby towel. He stopped suddenly and looked back at Dan.

"Wait - before I clean up, did you want some help?"

Dan immediately clasped his hands around his pot protectively.

"Not if that's your end product."

"What's wrong with this?" Phil said, looking affronted. "Rosie will love it!"

"We were meant to be making a bowl," Dan said. When Phil just kept staring at him he sighed. "That's a ball of clay with R.L. carved into it. There's a difference."

Phil sniffed haughtily and stroked a finger over the clay gently. "You're just jealous of my superior pottery and card playing skills."

*****

Dan hadn't suddenly let go of all of his routines. In some ways, not much had changed. He was still a creature of habit in that he always woke up at the same time. He still went to visit Lilian really early on Sunday mornings. He still had a baguette and cheese on the days that he didn't have breakfast with Phil and his wife.

But at the same time, everything was different. He didn't always wake up to the wave of loneliness that he'd grown so accustomed to. He no longer ate breakfast alone every day. He had real things to tell Lilian about.

He told her about how Phil had tried to convince him that bird watching was going to be the best thing ever to happen to him. He told her about how he'd refused to go and watch sparrows through binoculars. He told her how Phil had handed him a tiny pair of binoculars one morning, and had started pointing out different ducks and had named their favourite duckling Donald.

He described how he'd had Phil and Rose over for dinner, and how he'd gotten Amélie's help with making them the lasagne that Lily had always loved. He told her about how proud she'd been of how straight the lasagne sheets were.

He told her how he was finally starting to feel alive again.

*****

"Phil Lester?"

"That's me," Phil replied, standing up.

The nurse smiled and led him from the waiting room and down a few corridors in silence.

"Here we are," she said, stopping and knocking on a door on the right.

A voice called for him to come in, and the nurse nodded at him friendlily and left. Phil twisted the handle and stepped into the room, eyes immediately falling on the corkboard hanging above the desk. It was covered in childish drawings, all of them in different shades of green.

The doctor followed his gaze, and smiled.

"My son likes the colour green. Hi, I'm Dr Bailey," she said, holding her hand out for Phil to shake.

Phil shook it briefly, and sat down.

"So, why don't you tell me what the problem is?"

"Oh I'm sure it's nothing really," Phil said. "I've been having some back pain for a while, and my GP prescribed some painkillers but it didn't really help. He mostly put it down to me not being a spring chicken anymore."

The doctor nodded and clasped her hands together on the desk.

"Then I stopped digesting food properly and I lost a bit of weight, so I started feeling a tad tired. My wife worries easily, so she wanted me to go get checked out again. That was a few weeks ago, and the GP ran a few tests and was a bit concerned, so he referred me on to you."

"Alright, first thing we'll do is run a few more tests. I'll book a CT now, and we'll go from there."

******

Dan was squinting at his drawing critically, pencil held aloft and head tilted slightly.

"Can a pear be too pear-shaped?"

When Phil didn't react, Dan turned round to see him leaning his forehead against the easel, rubbing slow circles into his lower back.

"You alright?"

Phil looked up then, hand falling away from his back, and gave him a quick smile. "Oh don't worry about me, I'm just a bit tired."

He picked up his pencil again and directed his attention back to the fruit bowl. Dan considered asking him about the pear again, but something about the set of Phil's shoulders stopped him.

Instead, he slowly turned back to his drawing, and started rubbing out the pear.

******

"I said I'm sorry!" Phil called after his wife as she marched into the kitchen, doing his best to look wounded.

"Well sorry isn't good enough! You should have noticed," she replied, tone stern.

They'd been married for far too long for Phil not to know that she wasn't seriously angry. That hadn't stopped her from holding his sandwich hostage though.

"You've been making homemade jam for years! How was I supposed to know that this time it was store bought?"

Rose walked back into the dining room, still holding the plate with his jam sandwich. Phil looked at it mournfully. He'd been really enjoying it, and he didn't think he was going to get it back.

"Because after years of eating the homemade jam, how could you possibly not tell that what you were eating now was different?" she asked, shaking her head at him disappointedly.

Phil muttered something under his breath, frowning at her and his sandwich grumpily.

Rose laughed and started returning the sandwich, having decided to forgive him, when the phone rang. She changed course without thinking, turning around and heading for the phone.

"Wait no! You're taking my sandwich with you..." Phil trailed off, slumping forward again in defeat.

"Yes, of course," Rose was saying into the phone, nodding.

Phil was studying the jar in front of him critically. It looked the same. He was extremely sure it tasted the same. He reached out and slowly pulled the jar towards him until it was mere centimetres away from his face. He stared at it for another moment, then lifted his head from the table and unscrewed the lid.

Rose put down the phone just as Phil dipped his pinkie into the jar to scoop up some of the jam.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking amused.

Phil pulled his finger back out of his mouth and glared at her accusingly. "You lied to me!"

Rose gasped dramatically and put a hand to her cheek, eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Me? Lie? Never!"

"You lied to me!" he repeated, brandishing the jar at her. "This isn't store bought! Give me back my jam sandwich, you thief!"

She smiled at him beatifically and disappeared back into the kitchen with his sandwich.

"That was the hospital by the way," she called over her shoulder. "They'd like us to come in right away, so it's time to go."

Phil got to his feet reluctantly and headed to the hallway to retrieve his coat, pocketing his keys as he went.

"You're a cruel, cruel person," he informed Rose affectionately as he helped her into her coat.

*****

"Cancer?" Rose asked again, as if the answer would change if she asked enough times.

Dr Bailey nodded again, eyes flicking over to Phil every few seconds.

He'd been completely silent since the doctor had given them his diagnosis. He'd stayed unresponsive when she'd pulled out a folder with the one black and white scan after the other, and had only nodded absently as she'd pointed at different blobs and explained what they were.

"And you're completely sure? I mean, he just has some back pain and indigestion. Is there's no way it could be something else?"

Rose's hands were twisted together tightly in her lap, sometimes unclasping to scrunch up the material of her skirt before her fingers locked together again.

"It's Stage III pancreatic cancer, yes. It's an extremely difficult kind of cancer to catch because of how subtle the symptoms can be. It's often mistaken for something less serious, but the tests show it's definitely cancer."

Rosie took another deep breath and nodded at her lap.

"Alright," she said, still nodding. "What are the treatment options?"

Dr Bailey held up a scan again and indicated a portion of it as if it'd make things clearer.

"These bits here are your pancreas, and this is where the cancer is. It's spread to your liver and to one of your kidneys, and we'll need to run a couple more tests to see if it's spread any further than that."

She put down the scan and leaned forwards over the desk, regarding Phil seriously.

"Because it's spread, we can't operate to remove the tumour. What we can do is start an aggressive course of chemotherapy as soon as possible, and monitor the tumour and hope it disappears."

"Chemotherapy," Rose repeated, reaching to the side blindly to grip Phil's hand. "When do we start?"

"We can run the tests now, so we could start on Thursday."

"That's three days from now," Phil said, feeling Rose's hand tightening on his.

The doctor nodded. "You'll need to talk to a receptionist to schedule an appointment."

*****

Dan was in the process of tearing the last piece of the baguette into small chunks when he spotted Phil making his way over the bridge slowly. He paused, and squinted in Phil's direction, head tilted to the side.

Phil usually seemed like the human incarnation of Tigger in that he always had a spring in his step and seemed to perpetually emanate happiness. Now, however, he was walking slowly with his shoulders hunched forwards and head bowed. Dan was used to Phil always being cheerful, so seeing him looking so worn down made Dan's insides churn, anxiety setting in immediately.

"You don't look happy," Dan said cautiously, half praying that he was wrong and that the signature beam would appear any second.

"Hm?" Phil blinked, seeming a bit disorientated.

"You could look a bit less down in the dumps," Dan prompted, heart sinking at the unusually prominent frown lines on Phil's forehead.

Phil muttered something about just feeling a little under the weather, then went back to staring blankly at the ground.

Dan watched him for another minute, unnerved. When it didn't seem like there'd be a sign of life anytime soon, he resumed tearing the bread into smaller pieces.

Phil stayed completely silent while Dan tossed the bread to the ducks, wondering what could possibly have happened for Phil to be so quiet. He was used to Phil automatically filling the silence with completely random anecdotes and nonsensical tangents. He had no idea how to handle this new, weirdly silent version of his friend.

When the ducks had finished all the bread he started methodically folding the baguette bag into smaller and smaller squares. He'd never felt this uncomfortable around Phil before, and he couldn't stop his knee from bouncing up and down wildly.

Finally, as Dan was debating how likely Phil would be to notice if he just stood up and left, and how bad a friend that would make him, Phil broke the silence.

"I have cancer," Phil said matter-of-factly.

Dan froze, his brain already replaying the words and trying to find any way in which he could have misunderstood.

"It's Stage III pancreatic cancer," Phil continued, almost serenely. "I'm starting chemotherapy tomorrow."

Dan was distantly aware of the fact that his heart was racing and that he was having trouble breathing, but most of his attention was on Phil's words playing in his head on a loop. The words seemed to go faster and faster, each repeat making him feel sicker.

"Oh God," he gasped, feeling like all the air had been punched out of his lungs.

"Yeah. That seems about right."

*****

"So how does this work?"

Phil gestured from the IV to the needle in his forearm, grimacing slightly.

"Well this lovely bag of poison here is being slowly pumped into me over the course of several hours, and apparently that's going to help fix me."

Phil shook his head slightly disbelievingly, and moved his knight.

"Check."

Dan quickly moved his king to safety, and groaned when Phil simply moved his queen a space and grinned at him smugly.

"Checkmate."

"How is it that you always win?"

"I'm just that amazing," Phil replied happily.

"I'm trying to decide what's worse for my ego - art classes or playing card and board games with you."

"If it helps, I'm quite sure the ducks like you more."

Dan forced himself to grin back, and started shuffling the cards. They were alternating between speed chess and random card games. Rosie joined in with the card games, and grimly continued knitting a hat despite it being mid July. She insisted that Phil would be eternally grateful when he started losing his hair because of the chemotherapy. He just rolled his eyes fondly whenever she mentioned it.

"Wait, does this mean I don't have to go to the art classes anymore?"

Phil glowered at him as he arranged his cards to his liking, and said indignantly, "You most certainly do have to go!"

"Well since you won't be feeling well enough to force me to go..." Dan teased, starting off the game of sevens.

"All the more reason for you to go - I need someone to keep me up to date on what's happening for when I go back in a couple of weeks."

Dan sighed dramatically and nudged Rose to remind her that it was her go.

"I can stop maiming the golf terrain though, right?"

*****

"Bloody hell, how do people in films do this?" Dan huffed, stopping to catch his breath.

"You know, most people might get offended by this," Phil said easily, sneaking some of the bread meant for the ducks.

"Then tell your wheelchair to stop being so heavy and hard to maneuver, because this is just inhumane to the people that have to push you."

"Don't blame my poor innocent wheelchair - you're the one who kept insisting that the ducks missed me," Phil retorted, popping another chunk of bread into his mouth.

Dan leaned over and pulled the bread from his grasp, reminding him that the ducks would like him a lot less if he ate all their food. He then handed the bread back over when Phil countered that he hadn't been able to keep any food down in weeks because of the chemotherapy.

"When are you going to stop playing the cancer card?" Dan grumbled as he resumed pushing Phil towards the ducks.

"When I stop having cancer," Phil said around another mouthful of bread.

"How's that going?"

Phil waited to answer until he'd successfully relocated to their bench, claiming that he'd prefer not to roll into the Seine because of the faulty brake on the wheelchair. Dan settled in on the other side of the bench, turning his face up to the sun and accepting that Phil didn't plan on sharing the bread with the ducks.

"Dr Bailey seems to be pretty optimistic about it because apparently the tumours are shrinking a lot with each round of chemo. She thinks they might even disappear altogether over the last two rounds, so it might be worth being bald after all."

Dan grinned without opening his eyes, and said, "Of course it's worth being bald! You get to be the most badass grandpa ever. I mean, if that's not going to win you points with your grandkids, I don't know what will."

"Ah yes, how could I have forgotten about the badass points," Phil joked back, leaning further back against the bench.

"You're just missing a dragon tattoo. We don't have anything planned after this, we can fit it in before lunch!" Dan said, adopting an overexcited, high-pitched tone.

Phil snorted.

*****

The chemotherapy meant Phil was exhausted a lot of the time. He usually didn't have enough energy for anything other than watching old films in the days following the start of another round. This meant that Dan was spending more and more time at the Lester house, and on days where Phil had a bit more energy he brought Amélie along too.

Phil's bright personality meant he was extremely good with children, no matter how hyperactive they were. He was happy to watch all of the performances Amélie put on for him, and was scarily good at subtly cheating at cards in a way that meant Amélie always won.

That bright personality seemed to be a trait that had been passed down to Phil's children. His daughter had come up from Versailles, and her husband visited with the children on weekends when Phil felt well enough to be surrounded by children. His son had come down from Edinburgh with his husband almost immediately when he'd been told about the cancer.

When Dan had first been invited for dinner after Phil's children had arrived, he'd expected to feel completely out of place and like he was intruding. It had taken less than a minute for him to realize that he'd been wrong. Sarah had inherited Phil's ability to fill every silence with easy chatter, and Damon had gotten the twinkling blue eyes that immediately made Dan feel at ease.

There was only the tiniest part of Dan that felt envious. He'd often imagined what his family would have been like if Lily hadn't died. He'd thought of Logan being as happy as Sarah and Damon were, with his own little family unit. He'd dreamed of family dinners where they squabbled over who got the last potato and where he got to steal part of Lilian's dessert when he'd finished his. He'd imagined having his wife there to be equally proud when their grandchildren accomplished something new.

Phil and Rose had all of that, and even though they weren't technically his family, it didn't take long for it to feel that way regardless. It was the nights where Eva and Amélie joined them all for dinner than Dan felt the most content.

His patchwork family and his adopted family.

*****

Dan was wandering up the small path leading to Phil's front door, cheerfully swinging the bag with the smelliest cheese he'd been able to find.

Phil had been unable to understand why Dan always had cheese on his baguettes, so Dan had taken that as a challenge to find a cheese Phil wouldn't hate. Most of the time he genuinely made an effort. When Phil had insulted one of his favourite cheeses, however, he'd decided to take revenge in the form of a terrible smelling cheese.

It wasn't until he was about to ring the doorbell that he noticed the sheet of paper that had been hastily stuck to the door.

Hospital

Dan immediately turned around, walking to the bus stop as fast as he could, panic making his heart beat double time the whole way to the hospital.

He managed to find Phil's room relatively quickly, and was praying that Phil was fine as he strode down the corridor. That way, he could boast about how he hadn't accidentally strolled into the cafeteria kitchen this time. He needed to be able to brag about that. If he couldn't, then it meant Phil wasn't fine at all, and the thought made everything inside him seize up with dread.

Dan stopped outside the room, and took a deep breath to try and calm himself down before he pushed open the door.

As soon as he stepped inside the room he wished he hadn't.

Phil was lying completely still in the middle of the bed, hooked up to all sorts of quietly beeping monitors. There was an IV line in his arm, and an oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, his breath fogging it up as his chest rose and fell slowly.

"Rose?" he heard himself ask, his voice cracking.

She stood up from the chair next to his bed and walked over quickly to give him a hug.

"Pneumonia. The chemotherapy weakened his immune system, and he got pneumonia."

*****

Phil was mostly unconscious for the first few days, and not very responsive until a week after he'd been admitted. Dan was there every day in spite of that, and told him about the checklist he'd made of things people always did in films when someone was ill and unconscious.

He read newspaper articles to him, and gave him updates on things that had happened, like the temporary panic when he thought Donald Duckling had gone missing. He played him his favourite songs and tried not to mock him too much for his music taste. He told him about how if Lilian had been there she would definitely have made him vegetable soup that no one was ever sure they liked or not, and that Rose had come to feed the ducks a couple of times too.

Dan also stole the pudding that always arrived with the meals that Phil was never awake enough to eat, but he didn't tell him about that part of the checklist.

When he was finally more alert and definitely on the road to recovery, they started playing cards again with the whole family, and even in his drugged up state Phil easily beat them every time. He also started noticing that his pudding always went missing halfway through his meal, but was willing to make a deal - Phil got the ice cream, and Dan got the jelly.

The worry finally started to subside, and Dan did his best to ignore the fresh concern about Phil being too weak to start the new round of chemotherapy on time.

He continued to push aside his fears when the chemotherapy stopped working as well when they continued the treatment. And when the tumour started growing again, he firmly talked himself into a state of denial.

He wasn't ready to lose the first friend he'd made since Lilian's death, and he most certainly wasn't ready to let go of the family he'd been accepted into. Dan clung to every shred of positivity and optimism he could dredge up, and just redoubled his efforts to beat Phil at cards.

*****

Dan saw it as somewhat of a miracle when he managed to track down the video camera he'd bought when Amélie had been born. He'd been determined not to miss out on documenting a single thing, a result of all the missing snapshot moments from Logan's childhood.

He'd started out filming every time he saw Amélie, but after a few weeks he'd been forced to concede that - much as he adored his granddaughter - babies didn't make for the most interesting of footage. He'd still brought it out for when she first started to crawl and walk, and for her first couple of birthdays. Then it had disappeared somewhere around her third birthday, and he'd never gotten around to finding it again.

Dan had gotten the idea when Phil had tiredly mentioned that they hadn't gone to feed the ducks in a while. Since Phil wasn't able to leave the hospital just yet, Dan decided to film the ducks for him so he'd still get to see them.

He'd taken Amélie with him to feed the ducks, and together they'd made a silly documentary-style video with backstories for each duck and the goose that has appeared in the crowd. He'd dropped her off at school after, but he'd promised to tell her exactly which parts Phil liked the most.

When he got to the hospital, he walked to Phil's room on autopilot, mentally going over how he was going to pause the video when the goose first appeared. He wanted to tell Phil about how Amélie had dubbed the goose The Ugly Duckling on the way to school. She was sure it was going to lay a gold egg at some point soon, and Dan hadn't had the heart to tell her that she was mixing her fairy tales up rather a lot.

It took him a moment to notice that the room was completely empty, and that it had been cleared of all of Phil's possessions. Dan just turned around and headed to the nearby nurse's station, remembering the first time that Phil's room had been empty. He'd immediately thought the worst, and had felt pretty daft when he'd found out that Phil had just been moved to another room.

He patiently waited until the young looking nurse was done with the chart she was scribbling in, still fiddling with the video camera.

"Hi, I'm looking for Phil Lester. His room is empty, could you please tell me where he's been moved to?"

Dan smiled friendlily; mostly still absorbed in the conversation he was about to have with Phil about how adorable his granddaughter was.

When the nurse didn't respond straight away, he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and refocused on her face.

She had a kind of unsure look on her face, eyes wide and worried, and suddenly Dan felt like he had ice trickling through his veins. His heart was thumping in his chest almost painfully, and his stomach was twisting itself into knots. He was so afraid.

"What happened?" he asked, voice coming out in a whisper.

*****

Dan pulled his coat around himself a little tighter, amazed at how fast summer had given way to autumn. It felt like the city had transformed overnight. It was as if he'd gone to sleep with the world still coloured in hues of green and gold, and had woken up to find it brown and orange and red.

He ducked under another low branch and stopped, pivoting slowly. Dan had been sure that was the right area, and glanced down at his watch worriedly. He hated being late.

He was about to turn back the way he'd come when he spotted the bench by the water that he'd been told to look out for. His shoulders sagged in relief, and he started to pick his way across the leaf strewn path carefully.

Dan turned left when he reached the bench, steps slowing until he was stooping to lay down the bunch of yellow roses he'd been clutching. He forced a smile, and took a deep breath.

"Hi Phil," Dan said, fighting to keep his voice even as he stared at the shiny gravestone in front of him, the letters blurring through the tears. "How are you?"

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: main character death, terminal illness, mentions of medical procedures, hints of depression but not really
> 
> I found out that feeding ducks bread is actually bad for them after finishing the fic so um I’m sorry fictional duckies


End file.
